Wren

It would come back to her in flashes. She would be at her desk, writing something silly, imagining calling one of her highschool friends out of the blue, when the memory would strike. An image of flesh. The little dark, curly hairs on the back of her captors' hands. Falling. Then it would vanish as quickly as it had appeared, and Wren was left once more with only the mundanity of her present life. It was torture.

She found a suitable distraction in food. The air was too hot and she was too lazy to bake the sweets she craved. Her mind would wander to her childhood and her mouth would water as she recalled half moons with thick, goopy chocolate and vanilla frosting fresh from the bakery. She would sit in XXX park on a summer afternoon, leisurely licking the frosting off her half moon cake, watching the Greek widows stroll by in their black veils and long wool black dresses.

She looked in the freezer. Her mother had purchased a sole pint of low-fat vanilla frozen yogurt. Wren polished it off in 15 minutes. She rinsed the empty cardboard container and placed it in the recycling bin. Then she returned to the fridge to see what else she could find.

Wren began to experiment with plain and vanilla-flavored cold sweets. She added food coloring and exotic fruits to frozen yogurt. She mixed aspartame and peanut butter with ricotta cheese. She ate Nutella on everything. By the end of the summer, she had gained 40 pounds, which, she realized during the morning of reckoning on the scale, averaged out to over 13 pounds a month.